McGuire, Rondet to Drive C360R Audi S3 in CTSC

Jim McGuire and Nico Rondet have been signed to drive the one of Compass 360 Racing’s new Audi S3s for the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge season, with AERO Advanced Paint Technology becoming a technical partner of the team.

“We are beyond thrilled to welcome AERO to our squad as a technical partner,” said Team Principal Karl Thomson. “Having seen teams in IndyCar, IMSA’s DP and GTLM classes use AERO, we think their technology is simply amazing and look forward to rolling it out across our fleet.”

Initially, AERO products will be used exclusively on new Audi S3 CTSC Street Tuner-class cars the team will campaign in 2015, with AERO being added to new Audis as they come on line over the next few seasons to compete in CTSC Grand Sports and Pirelli World Challenge GTS and TC classes.

McGuire and Rondet will helm the No. 74 AERO / Racing4Research Audi S3, joining Paul Holton and Kyle Gimple in the sister No. 75 CTF.org Racing4Research car.

“This is a very strong driver line-up across both cars,” remarked C360R technical director Ray Lee. “We always planned to bring our ‘A’ game to the development of the new Audi, and the arrival of Jim and Nico gives us two good cars for 2015.”

McGuire, CEO & Founder of entrotech, the parent of AERO. Rondet is the Chief Instructor at Simraceway at Sonoma Raceway, which hosts the Audi Driving Experience School featuring a variety of Audi cars including the R8, S- and RS-models.

“We’ve known Nico for many years, and he actually did a one-off race with us back in 2009,” explained Thomson. “It’s taken us a while, but Ray and I are really excited to finally have him with us full time with Jim.”

Testing of the new Audis is progressing well, and the team expects to debut the two cars at Sebring in March.

The squad will use its trusted Honda Civic Si platform for the Daytona race, January 21-22, as the track has proven to suit those cars well and will allow additional time to fine-tune the Audis in preparation for the challenging mid-Florida track at Sebring.